Visma-Lease a Bike were vindicated in their decision to ride at the very back of the peloton for much of the final 30km on stage 1 of the Giro d'Italia, avoiding the late mass crash entirely and ensuring heavy GC favourite Jonas Vingegaard arrived at the finish safely.
For much of the 147km stage from Nessebar to Burgas along the Black Sea coastline in Bulgaria, their yellow and black jerseys were present just behind those of the teams eyeing up the sprint, as you'd expect of defending champions, but as racing entered its final 25km, they had all disappeared.
Camera shots from the helicopter highlighted Vingegaard and his troops looking very relaxed, with their sports directors rightly fearing the chaos that did end up ensuing, when footed barriers and a hectic sprint saw around a dozen riders hit the deck at high speed, and most of the peloton held up.
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This didn't happen until the final kilometre, though, and with the 5km rule in play – where any accident or incident within that zone would result in riders getting the same time as the winner – Visma-Lease a Bike took the more risk-averse option.
"It was big roads, only going straight, and with the 5km rule. For us, it was important to get through this in a good way, to get to the finish and to stay safe because you saw what happened," Visma DS Marc Reef told Cyclingnews at the team bus as a very chilled-out Vingegaard warmed down beside him.
"With the narrowing in the final kilometre, we expected also something like this already, and you just want to stay safe and make it to the finish."
Editions of the Giro in the past have often started with time trials or punchy finishers for the more versatile riders to sink their teeth into, as was the case in 2025 and 2024, but on this occasion, the flat roads meant all of the top sprinters present were interested.
With a rare chance at the pink jersey on the line, Reef expected this was more of a factor in causing the chaos than the nature of the barriers of the roads themselves in Bulgaria's fourth-largest city.
"It's the first stage, there was a lot to play for. Not only the stage win, but also the pink jersey, and people are fresher, especially after a relatively easy stage like this," he said.
"Then the risk is just higher, and especially with the narrowing as we had, the chance is there. There was no space to move; in the barriers, it was just like one and a half lanes, and that's where the risk is."
With no Tadej Pogačar on the start line, Vingegaard is expected to ride away with the maglia rosa once the Giro reaches its toughest stages in 2026, but he has to make it there in order to impose himself on the uphill roads.
While concerned for his rivals on other teams who went down, Vingegaard was mostly satisfied to have made it back to the bus unscathed.
"We used the tactic of sitting down at the back, which we have done a few times now. It seems to work really well for us," he told Danish publication Feltet in Burgas.
"Especially today, when there are really big roads, there is no danger. Even if there had been a crash, we would have been able to get it back. I just hope everyone is okay. It looked like a bad crash, but it was right up front, and I was sitting more down at the back. We got through the day safely, and the team did well."
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